nu 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


LETTERS  OF  HENRY  BREVOORT 
TO  WASHINGTON  IRVING 


TO 

WASHINGTON   IRVING 


TOGETHER  WITH  OTHER  UNPUBLISHED 

Jean  Renwick 

From  the  painting  by  John  Wesley  Jarvis 

(Mrs.  Renwick,  the  cherished  friend  of  both  Irving  and  Brevoort, 
was,  in  her  girlhood,  as  Jean  Jeffrey,  celebrated  in  poems  by 
Robert  Burns.  This  portrait  is  reproduced  by  the  courtesy  of 
her  great-granddaughter,  Mrs.  Robert  Sedgwick.) 


NEW  YORK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
Ubc  fmtcfterbocfcer 

wia 


){gdW  nrio],  -{ 


. 


vd 


ysiBsl.  nti»l  &a  .boorihij  ist(  ni 
J  vd  bsouboiqai  21  Jif/rtioq  giriT     ,?.mufl 

•t.ioS  .snM  ,i9lri8Ufihhncna-ifi9Ta 


LETTERS  OF 

HENRY  BREVOORT 


TOGETHER  WITH  OTHER  UNPUBLISHED 

BREVOORT  PAPERS 


EDITED,  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION,  BY 

GEORGE  S.  HELLMAN 


NEW  YORK 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Gbe  Imicfcerbocfter  press 
J918 


COPYRIGHT,  1916 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 


First  published  in  1916,  in  two  volumes,  in  a  Limited  Edition 
of  310  sets.  Now  issued  in  a  Library  Edition,  the  two  volumes 
in  one. 

Autumn,  1918. 


"Cbe  •Rntchcrbocfeer  presa,  flew 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

IN  1915,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  brought  into 
publication,  in  a  specially  printed  edition,  the 
letters  written  by  Washington  Irving  to  his 
friend  Henry  Brevoort.  The  editorial  re- 
sponsibility for  the  two  volumes  rested  with 
Mr.  George  S.  Hellman.  The  public  showed 
a  favorable  and  immediate  interest  in  the 
volumes  and  the  edition  was  exhausted  within 
a  few  days  of  its  publication.  Encouraged  by 
the  interest  expressed  in  this  series  of  letters, 
the  publishers  are  glad  to  be  able  to  present, 
under  the  same  editorial  supervision,  the  other 
side  of  this  distinctive  correspondence,  the 
letters  of  Henry  Brevoort  to  Washington 
Irving.  The  Editor,  Mr.  Hellman,  was  for- 
tunate enough  to  come  into  relations  at  the 
Grolier  Club  with  Mr.  Grenville  Kane,  who 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 


spoke  with  interest  and  with  approval  of  the 
volumes  of  the  Irving-Brevoort  Letters.  Mr. 
Kane  advised  Mr.  Hellman  that  he  had  in  his 
possession  the  letters  of  his  grandfather,  Mr. 
Henry  Brevoort,  and,  with  the  characteristic 
liberality  of  a  student  of  history  and  of  a 
lover  of  books,  he  offered  to  place  this  series 
of  letters  at  the  disposal  of  Mr.  Hellman  for 
publication  as  a  companion  work.  Mr.  Hell- 
man realized  how  important  the  publication 
of  these  letters  would  be  in  completing  the 
record  of  this  historic  friendship. 

Of  the  series  of  Irving  Letters,  a  portion — 
although  only  a  small  portion — came  into 
publication  in  Pierre  M.  Irving's  Life  and 
Letters  of  his  Uncle,  but  the  letters  of  Bre- 
voort are  practically  unknown  to  the  public. 
In  the  four  volumes  of  the  Irving  Biography, 
Pierre  Irving  had  been  able  to  make  place  for 
but  three  pages  of  the  Brevoort  material. 
This  series  of  letters  presents  a  distinctive  and 
original  record  of  the  social,  literary,  and 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 


dramatic  events  in  New  York  and  in  the 
literary  circles  of  the  Republic  during  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  few  letters 
belonging  to  the  years  1808,  1809  and  1810 
are  missing,  but  the  series  is  substantially 
complete. 

The  publishers  desire  to  express  their  obliga- 
tions to  Mr.  Grenville  Kane  for  his  gracious 
action  in  permitting  them  now  to  be  brought 
into  print. 

Acknowledgments  are  also  due  to  another 
member  of  the  Brevoort  family,  Mrs.  Robert 
Sedgwick,  through  whom  have  been  secured 
excerpts  from  letters  written  by  her  grand- 
mother Margaret,  who  was  the  sister  of  Henry 
Brevoort  and  who  became  the  wife  of  Pro- 
fessor James  Renwick.  Margaret  Brevoort 
was  a  charming  correspondent,  and  the  Editor 
has  been  glad  to  utilize  in  his  pages  passages 
from  these  lively  and  characteristic  letters. 
The  publishers  desire  also  to  express  their 
appreciation  of  Mrs.  Sedgwick' s  courtesy  in 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 


placing  at  their  service  the  portrait  by  Jarvis 
of  Mrs.  Renwick,  now  in  the  home  of  her 
great-granddaughter,  Mrs.  Sedgwick;  and  of 
Mr.  Kane's  similar  courtesy  in  regard  to 
the  portrait  by  Rembrandt  Peale  of  Henry 
Brevoort.  These  portraits  are  now  for  the 
first  time  reproduced. 

G.  H.  P. 

NEW  YORK,  July,  1916. 


Vlll 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  letters  of  Henry  Brevoort  to  Washing- 
ton Irving  constitute  a  body  of  manuscripts 
of  exceptional  interest;  and  this,  from  many 
points  of  view.  He  touches,  with  a  liter- 
ary grace  and  a  sense  of  humor  almost  equal 
to  those  of  his  famous  and  well-loved  friend, 
on  topics  intimately  interwoven  with  the  cul- 
tural, the  commercial,  and  the  political  devel- 
opment of  America  during  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  For  many  readers,  how- 
ever, the  most  immediate  charm  of  these 
letters  will  reside  in  their  social  aspect,  in 
Brevoort's  faculty  for  conjuring  up  to  us  of  a 
later  age  the  living  presentments  of  the  men 
and  women  in  whom  Irving  and  he  were  most 
interested.  Old  families  of  New  York,  early 
writers,  actors,  statesmen,  artists,  again  cross 
from  the  land  of  shadows,  and  carry  us  along 


INTRODUCTION 


familiar   highways   and    fascinating    byways 
of  our  city's  past. 

Brevoort  was  born  in  September,  1782, 
some  six  months  prior  to  the  birth  of  Irving; 
he  married  in  1817  Laura  Carson  of  South 
Carolina;  in  1848  he  died,  and  lies  buried  in 
Trinity  Cemetery.  His  father,  old  Henry 
Brevoort,  was  a  notable  character,  a  man  of 
such  influence  and  determination  that  to 
meet  his  wishes  the  city  authorities  deflected 
Broadway  and  omitted  to  lay  out  that  part  of 
Eleventh  Street  on  which  faced  the  Brevoort 
homestead.  Generations  of  this  family  have 
been  prominent  in  New  York,  allied  in  many 
directions  with  other  distinguished  families. 
In  journalism  and  in  historical  writings  both 
Irving's  friend  Henry  and  his  son  Carson 
Brevoort  adventured  with  success,  while  Mrs. 
Brevoort's  fancy  dress  ball  (given  in  1840 
in  the  mansion  which  still  stands  at  the 
corner  of  Ninth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue) 
was  the  most  splendid  social  affair  of  the 


INTRODUCTION 


first .  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  New 
York. 

It  is,  however,  in  connection  with  Irving 
that  the  name  of  this  old  Dutch  family  will 
longest  be  remembered  in  the  larger  world  of 
letters;  and  it  is  indeed  fortunate  that  the 
record  of  so  delightful  a  friendship  can  be 
amplified  by  the  Brevoort  manuscripts,  thus 
at  last,  after  the  recent  publication  of  Irvihg's 
epistles,  rounding  out  their  correspondence. 

The  first  letter  among  those  preserved  in  the 
family  archives  was  written  in  New  York  at 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1811,  and  was  re- 
ceived by  Irving  during  his  stay  at  Washing- 
ton where  he  was  the  guest  of  John  P.  Van 
Ness,  one  time  mayor  of  that  city.  Although 
Irving  had  written  to  Brevoort  on  January 
1 3th  a  lengthy  letter  recounting  the  trip  by 
stage  from  New  York  to  Baltimore  and  thence 
to  Washington,  his  missive  had  not  as  yet 
reached  Brevoort  six  days  later  in  New  York. 
Delivery  of  communications  takes  fewer  hours 


INTRODUCTION 


now  than  days  then;  and  the  journey  to 
Washington  is  called  by  Brevoort  a  pilgrimage, 
and  Irving  "an  eastern  sovereign  travelling 
through  his  vast  dominion. " 

It  is  an  interesting  coincidence  that  the 
first  of  these  letters  to  the  first  internationally 
recognized  American  author  should  be  taken 
up  with  lengthy  comment  concerning  a  pub- 
lication that  was  the  first  quarterly  issued  in 
the  United  States.  Robert  Walsh's  magazine, 
The  American  Review  of  History  &  Politics, 
began  that  department  of  our  literature  which 
has  now  assumed  such  large  proportions. 
Corroborative  of  the  paucity  of  original  work 
by  American  authors  was  the  initial  number 
of  Walsh's  journal,  which  in  its  literary 
columns  could  find  little  home  talent  to 
discuss. 

The  non-partisan  Americanism  (an  unusual 
trait  in  those  days)  that  characterized  Irving 
is  similarly  manifest  in  Brevoort's  comments 
concerning  Walsh's  attack  on  the  admin- 


INTRODUCTION 


istration  of  James  Madison.  As  the  corre- 
spondence proceeds  we  shall  see  how,  often 
not  alone  in  tastes,  but  essentially  in  temper- 
ament, Irving  and  Brevoort  were  akin.  Both 
these  men  combined  with  large  fair-minded- 
ness and  all  absence  of  intemperate  party 
feeling  a  decided  reticence  that  makes  their 
comparatively  unguarded  interchange  of 
thought  the  most  striking  evidence  of  the 
deep  affection  which  bound  them  together. 

Of  the  New  York  people  who  make  their 
far-off  bow  to  us  in  Brevoort's  opening  letter, 
the  most  noted  is  DeWitt  Clinton,  then  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  almost 
at  the  termination  of  his  long  and  distin- 
guished life.  Gulian  C.  Verplanck  also  enters ; 
and  him  we  shall  meet  often  in  this  corre- 
spondence ;  nor  has  his  reputation  as  historical 
student  and  critic  altogether  faded  out  of  the 
memory  of  old  New  Yorkers.  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, he  is  best  remembered  for  his  indignation 

\ 
at    Irving's    Knickerbocker's    History,    which 


INTRODUCTION 


Verplanck  condemned  as  an  unfair  caricature 
of  Dutch  manners  and  character. 

Two  ladies  who  figure  in  this  same  letter, 
as  in  so  many  of  those  from  Irving,  are  Mrs. 
Renwick  and  Mrs.  Hoffman,  the  latter  the 
mother  of  Matilda  whose  early  death  had 
robbed  Irving  of  his  fiancee;  the  former  a 
woman  who  in  her  girlhood  had  been  immor- 
talized in  the  songs  of  Robert  Burns,  and  who 
throughout  her  long,  brilliant,  and  brave  life 
retained  in  extraordinary  degree  the  admira- 
tion and  affection  of  both  Irving  and  Brevoort. 

The  letter  of  the  following  month  is  devoted 
almost  entirely  to  matters  of  the  drama,  and 
the  account  of  the  dinner  given  by  Cooke, 
the  actor,  is  one  of  the  most  delectable  anec- 
dotes in  the  record  of  the  New  York  stage. 
In  November,  1810,  George  Frederick  Cooke 
made  his  first  appearance  in  America,  in  the 
character  of  Richard  III.,  and  began  a  second 
engagement  at  the  Park  Theatre  on  the  ist 
of  February,  1811,  as  Shylock.  This  brilliant 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


Irishman  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  the  early 
actors  in  New  York.  The  monument  erected 
to  his  memory  through  the  generosity  of 
Edmund  Kean  still  stands  in  St.  Paul's 
Churchyard  on  Broadway,  and  brings  him  to 
the  minds  of  some  of  the  more  leisurely  passers- 
by  among  the  hurrying  throngs  of  to-day. 

In  far  different  vein  is  the  next  missive. 
Brevoort  has  left  New  York  and  is  now 
associated  with  John  Jacob  Astor  in  the  fur 
trade.  He  writes  to  Irving  from  Mackinac 
and  gives  notable  descriptions  of  his  canoe 
trip  from  Montreal.  A  second  letter  from 
Mackinac  takes  up  a  topic  which,  even  after 
the  passage  of  more  than  a  century,  we  Ameri- 
cans cannot  contemplate  without  a  sense  of 
regret  bordering  on  shame.  The  treatment 
of  the  Indians  by  the  early  settlers  involved 
acts  often  ruthless  and  sometimes  criminally 
aggressive;  and  Brevoort's  intense  desire  to 
mitigate  the  wrongs  suffered  by  the  Indians 
had  a  humane  as  well  as  a  practical  basis. 


XV 


INTRODUCTION 


Even  Jefferson,  who  during  his  administration 
had  shown  himself  generally  fair-minded  to- 
wards the  red  men,  so  shared  in  his  country- 
men's wish  to  acquire  Indian  territory  as  to 
condone  acts  which  were  essentially  deeds  of 
unjustifiable  barter.  The  French  under  Na- 
poleon, as  well  as  the  English,  treated  the 
savages  with  more  consideration.  The  Ameri- 
cans, at  the  time  of  Brevoort's  letter,  were 
committing  acts,  both  in  hunting  upon  Indian 
territory  and  in  acquiring  that  territory, 
leading  inevitably  to  Indian  warfare.  The 
expostulations  of  men  like  Brevoort  could  not 
avail  in  stopping  a  procedure  which  we  must 
to  this  day  shield  under  the  doubtful  aegis 
of  the  phrase:  "survival  of  the  fittest." 

Brevoort's  letter  has  an  amusing  paragraph 
wherein  he  invokes  divine  Apollo  to  avert  his 
face  from  Irving  (whom  Brevoort  calls  the 
"renowned  Knickerbocker")  until  his  friend 
shall  have  finished  his  clerical  work  and  turned 
again  from  commerce  to  literature;  and,  fur- 


INTRODUCTION 


ther  on,  there  is  another  reference  to  Irving' s 
Knickerbocker's  History,  which  had  already 
found  its  way  into  the  far  outposts  of  the 
Indian  territory. 

In  the  third  of  these  Mackinac  letters  Bre- 
voort  continues  his  advocacy  of  the  rights  of 
the  tribes  and  gives  a  vivid  account  of  a 
scene  in  which  an  Indian  magician  gets  in 
touch  with  one  of  his  Manitoos;  but,  for  us, 
the  most  notable  paragraph  in  this  letter  is 
that  in  which  Brevoort  dwells  on  the  magic 
"contained  in  that  honest  little  word  'home.' ' 
Irving' s  own  letters  reveal  the  same  sentiment 
similarly  expressed. 

The  lines  of  July  29th  conclude  in  lighter 
vein  the  fourth  of  this  group  of  Mackinac  let- 
ters, a  series  in  itself  delightful,  and  of  special 
note  if  we  accept  the  family  tradition  that 
Brevoort  was  the  first  New  Yorker  of  any 
eminence  to  dwell  on  that  island. 

After  he  had  returned  to  New  York,  Bre- 
voort's  parents  offered  him  what  was  then 


INTRODUCTION 


considered  the  greatest  of  opportunities:  a 
visit  to  Europe.  He  sets  out,  and,  at  Paris, 
his  next  letter  to  Irving  is  dated  April,  1812. 
The  war  then  in  progress  between  England 
and  France  of  course  led  to  many  exagger- 
ations and  misstatements  in  the  English  press, 
from  which  Americans  gained  a  wrong  idea 
of  the  conditions  of  the  French  peasantry, — • 
much  as  (although  with  more  truth)  it  has 
been  England's  policy  to  emphasize  the  eco- 
nomic hardships  of  her  enemies  in  the  present 
war.  Brevoort  gives  Irving  reliable  and  first- 
hand information,  adding  to  his  remarks  con- 
cerning the  peasantry  news  relating  to  the 
Emperor  and  his  plan  of  campaign.  We 
meet  with  personal  descriptions  of  Napoleon 
and  the  Empress,  whom  Brevoort  saw  at  the 
opera,  and  to  whom,  much  to  his  indignation, 
he  was  not  introduced,  because  of  the  neg- 
lect of  Mr.  Barlow.  His  interest  in  new 
scenes  does  not  make  him  forgetful  of  Irving's 
affairs,  and  in  his  request  for  copies  of  Knicker- 


